DesignAday

Google Chrome

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 02:13:30 -0500

Speed, simplicity, and security. These are the core tenets that Google has built their Chrome OS around. I watched a video of the demo they gave last week, and while I have a lot of respect for their efforts, I can’t get excited about it.

Much like the Litl, which I wrote about last week, Google is stepping back from the robust operating systems we are used to and creating something new. There is no local storage—everything is cloud based—and this fundamentally changes the way in which the UI is designed. I appreciate what they are doing, but I can’t say that I like it.

Part of it has to do with the fact that the main method of organization and navigation is tabs. Now, I don’t have a problem with tabs—I use them quite often in my own work—but I’m uncomfortable with the extreme employment of them. I realize it fits with the browser-as-OS approach they are taking, but it feels too limiting to me.

The majority of my misgivings are due to the lack of “desktop” applications. Would I be satisfied using a web app to edit my video? I have an HD camera, and I don’t see myself uploading gigabyte’s worth of video to the web for editing. That isn’t practical—at least, not yet. Do I want to trust my thousands of high resolution photos to a web service? And how much is it going to cost me in monthly subscriptions to manage all of this content?

All that said, I really do admire Google for trying. It’s not just any company that can introduce a new operating system and be taken seriously. At the very least, Chrome will teach us a lot. It’s going to be fun watching it develop.

Reusable Blades

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 08:00:12 -0500

Everyone knows the old ploy: give away the razor; make a killing on the blades. They’ve done it with inkjet printers and any number of other products that require consumables. A slight twist to this is selling an expensive product that also requires consumables. Take vacuum cleaners, for instance. All vacuums used to require bags, but now canister vacuums are all the rage. Of course, they’ve added all kinds of air filters to the vacuums that fill with dust over time and must be replaced. The Dyson vacuums have a couple filters in them, but they’ve done something really smart and consumer-friendly. The filters can be washed in the sink. You just rinse them out, let them dry, and put them back in. Sure, the Dyson is expensive, but it has no recurring costs.

Apple does the right thing… eventually.

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 08:00:53 -0500

Saturday morning, I checked my email before heading to a rehearsal. When I returned home, around 11:00, I discovered that my network was down. I looked over at my Time Capsule to see that the light was off. The Time Capsule is Apple’s back-up device that works with Time Machine. It contains a hard drive (Mine is 1 TB.) and also acts as a wireless router. I have three Macs that back up to it hourly.

I tried unplugging the power cord and plugging it back in. I tried pressing the reset button. It would not power on. So, I used my iPhone to do a quick search, and I found some reports of first generation Time Capsules dying after about 18 months. I purchased mine in April of 2008, so that puts mine at about 19. Apparently the power supply, which is inside of the unit, can’t handle the heat produced by the device and goes bad. Of course, the warranty is only a year.

After I got my Verizon router configured to provide the network, I found these threads on the Apple discussion forums. It seems a lot of people have been having this issue, starting back in August. I ended up calling Apple Care, even though I don’t currently have an Apple Care policy on my machines. Once I explained that I was experiencing the same power supply issue that a lot of others have had, the representative took down by serial number and put me old hold while he looked it up. When he returned, he told me that Apple will be sending me a replacement unit free of charge.

This is a rather serious issue. People are using Time Capsules as their primary means of backup. They should be more dependable than this. That said, I only use it for backup, so I haven’t lost data. Some people simply use it as network attached storage.

It has taken Apple a few months to finally decide to do the right thing and replace units that are obviously suffering from a design flaw. Many customers who were victim to the issue early on have already hacked there units to install external power supplies, or to remove the drives so they could retrieve their data. They won’t be eligible for new units. Many people already replaced their Time Capsules.

Apple has decided to do the right thing, and I applaud them for that. Once again, they have won my loyalty and proven that they are a good and trustworthy company. I must question, however, if I would feel the same way had my unit gone belly up back in August.

The Extra Step

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:43:18 -0500

Beware of the extra step. If it is part of a procedure that the user carries out within a software application, chances are that it is an action that will be repeated many times over.

When creating diagrams, a common action is to center a connecting line with the object it connects to. In Freehand, this could be accomplished in three clicks: 1 each to select the objects to be aligned, and one to press the align button. The default behavior in Freehand dictates that if one object is narrower than the other and is within the bounds of the wider object, it will center to the current position of the wider object without the wider object moving. 99.9% of the time, this is the desired behavior.

In Illustrator, this is not the default behavior. Instead, both objects will move an equal amount of distance toward each other to center on the space between their previous positions. To achieve the aforementioned behavior, you must select an option to center on a key selected object from a menu. Then, if the wider object isn’t already selected as the “key”, you must click on the object that you want to be the key. This takes twice as many clicks to accomplish in Illustrator, and I’ll likely do it over a hundred times while creating a diagram.

Let the Griping Commence

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 08:20:51 -0500

May 18th, 2007, I made a post titled “R.I.P. Freehand”. Today, I finally laid Freehand to rest. I’ve upgraded to Adobe CS4 Design Standard, and have begun working in Illustrator. For the most part, I’m able to function just fine. However, I keep running into speed bumps.

Keyboard shortcuts are one source of problems. For example, in Freehand, “group” was command+g and “ungroup” was command+u. In Illustrator, it is command+g and command+shift+g. Every time I hit command+u, I turn off the smart guides—one of the new features that I very much appreciate. Freehand’s shortcuts are so ingrained, it will take a long time to relearn them.

Another cause of annoyance, and I knew it would be, is Illustrator’s reliance on separate cursors for selecting objects and points. This is going to take a lot of getting used to. In Freehand, clicking on an object selected the object. Clicking on a point selected the point. In Illustrator, I have to think about what exactly I want to select, and then pick the cursor that will allow me to select it. And heaven forbid that I would want to select one entire object and a few points from another object, say for purposes of alignment. Switching cursors switches what is already selected too.

The biggest befuddlement came when I couldn’t get my text to wrap. I’d drag the text box to resize, and it would scale the text, rather than causing it to reflow. After some research, I found that there are two types of text objects. If you just click on the page with the text tool, you get a single line of text that doesn’t wrap. If, however, you click and drag with the text tool, it will draw out a text box that behaves as I would expect it to, allowing text to reflow as the box is resized. I can’t find a way to switch text that has been created one way to the other kind. Nor can I find a way to get a resizable text box to automatically expand to fit its contents as I could in Freehand.

Don’t get me wrong, there are lots of things that Illustrator does better, but the details are going to slow me down for awhile.

Map of the Design Landscape Through Recent History

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 01:00:00 -0500

I’d like to feature the work of one of my graduate students. I gave an assignment in which each student was to design a map of the design landscape depicting major disciplines, organizations, educational institutions, firms, luminaries, and methods. They didn’t necessarily have to include all of this information, nor were they limited to it. Forrest Conroy incorporated everything just mentioned, and then added conferences, related companies, and example products. He mapped everything over time, showing relationships between them. The resulting chart is a beautiful piece of work.

Forrest used three major categories: communications in yellow, which is equivalent to Graphic Design, interactions + activities in blue, which includes Interaction Design, Information Architecture, and Service Design, and products in red, which is basically Industrial Design. You can watch these intertwine as digital products like computers and mobile phones incorporate hardware and software design.

Lines track the careers of prominent designers along the horizontal axis of time, while vertical lines make connections between people, organizations, and methods.

Insets on the right-hand side list all NASAD approved design programs.

Design Pattern: Soft Keyboards

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 01:00:00 -0500

Efficient data entry is arguably the most difficult goal to achieve in a mobile UI. On-screen keyboards, while not as efficient as touch typing on a physical keyboard, can be useful for short amounts of text, such as filling out a form. Tablets have enough screen real estate to display full keyboards, and smaller devices can display specialized data entry pop-ups. Typically, the operating system installed on the device will provide a keyboard, which may be good enough in some instances, but custom designed keyboards that address the needs of specific user groups have the potential to be much more efficient.

In a typical data entry form, there will be fields intended for specific types of data: dates, numeric values, time of day, locations, or “free” text entry. Rather than using a single, full-size keyboard to enter all of these, an efficient UI will provide data-specific pop-ups: a calendar pop-up for date selection, a pop-up specifically for entering the time of day, a numeric keypad, etc. These pop-ups can be smaller, obscuring less of the screen, and can make data entry quicker while also reducing errors.
When data entry pop-ups open, they should try not to obscure the field in which the data is to be entered.
Data entry pop-ups should be movable, so that if they do happen to obscure something that the user needs to see, they can be moved to another part of the screen.
As data is entered, it should be displayed in the pop-up, as well as in the field it is being entered into.
Buttons should be large enough to be very easily targeted by a stylus or finger. However, this should be balanced by the need to keep the pop-ups to as small a footprint as possible.
Pop-up keyboards must include access to special characters needed by the users.
Pop-ups should have a “clear” button. Keyboards should have a “backspace” button as well.

A litl More

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 01:00:00 -0500

After my brief post last week about the litl, I was contacted by James Gardner, litl’s VP of marketing. He pointed me to a post on Pentagram’s site and to a video on YouTube. As I was hoping, they painted a picture of very thoughtful design and filled in a lot more detail. In fact, as it turns out, they had an all-star cast working on this thing. Lisa Strausfeld lead Pentagram’s team in the design of the GUI, and Pentagram was also responsible for the visual identity, designed by Abbott Miller. The logo, business cards, and packaging are all exquisite.

The UI has the polish one would expect from Apple. Animated transitions bring a natural flow to state changes. The dial that is used for serial navigation in “easel” mode is repeated on the remote. They designed several channels that deliver specific information from the internet, like the weather, as well as a number of “widgets” like a clock or a feed reader. Visual treatments clearly distinguish between widgets, channels, and standard webpages. Arrangement of these items is automated much like the rearranging of photographs in iPhoto. It hooks up to your hi-def television with an HDMI cable to play movies or show photos. And, if you have more than one in the house, they can be set up to share things with each other.

Also working on the project were Cooper, Fort Franklin, and Fuseproject, although I don’t know what their contributions were. Fuseproject was also behind the OLPC XO laptop, so I’m betting they worked on the industrial design.

The video is pretty awful—lot’s of “um-uh” and fumbling around, but the product shows off well. They should really put together a professional video demonstration of the UI. I think they have a lot to be proud of. This could be a very successful product, although I’m curious to see if they’ve hit a low-enough price point. At $699 or $1,398 for a two-pack, it seems a bit much for something without local storage.

Return

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 21:32:11 -0500

I feel compelled to apologize to my regular readers for the lack of posts last week. I was sick, and blogging was rather low on my list of priorities. Sleep was a fair bit higher. I’m better now, so we will now return to our regular program.

Like Magic

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:00:00 -0500

I started using Apple’s new Magic Mouse today, and I absolutely love it. I find it very comfortable, a perfect weight, and with just enough resistance as it slides across my desktop. Of course, the best feature of it is the swipe to scroll. I really liked the scroll ball on my old Mighty Mouse, but this is a vast improvement. The scroll ball worked well, but just like the wheels, it could only scroll as far as your finger tip is long. This required you to move your index finger repeatedly to scroll down a page. With the swipe, you have the entire length of the mouse. On top of that, they have added momentum scrolling, like on the iPhone, so that a good swipe can send your page scrolling quite a distance. Also, the scroll ball would collect gunk over time and stop working. Then you would have to turn the mouse upside down and rub it rapidly back and forth on a piece of paper to clean it. That will not be a problem with the Magic Mouse’s touch surface.

Apple has received a lot of criticism over the years for its mouse designs. This one is a winner—likely the best mouse ever. Of course, I’ve been partial to Apple’s mice, so make of my review what you will.

A Litl Something

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 07:53:00 -0500

A new netbook-type product has been released: the Litl. I find this one more interesting than the underpowered laptops we have seen thus far, however. It takes what I consider to be an Apple approach. The creators must have asked the question, “If we were to design a laptop that was strictly for web use only, what would it be?”

The Litl looks like a small laptop—it folds open revealing a screen in the top and a keyboard and trackpad on the bottom. However, the lid rotates around to an angle at which the device can stand like an easel. The hinge acts as a handle.

The biggest change is that they realized a typical desktop OS was unnecessary. Much as Apple did with the iPhone, they created a custom UI designed specifically for web use. It is truly a case of browser as operating system.

The one flaw, to my mind, is that it doesn’t have a touch-screen. Instead, they opted for a dial on the hinge that allows you to flip through selections. I haven’t yet seen a demonstration of the UI in action, but this is begging for touch input.

Incompetence

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 01:42:07 -0500

Dustin Curtis has a tale to tell about American Airlines, the design of their website, and the way they run their business. It isn’t pretty. This post is in response, so I encourage you to read it first.

Observation 1: Give the benefit of the doubt.
Dustin’s initial post was rather harsh, declaring that AA should fire their entire design team and hire outside contractors to redesign the website. He recommended this with no knowledge of the organization or the people that work there. He didn’t consider the constraints in which the design team works or the size of the company. It would be like me writing a post declaring that Microsoft should fire all their UI designers and hire somebody else to redesign Windows from scratch. It’s a ridiculous proposition, and disrespectful. When writing a critique, you should assume that you don’t have all of the facts and be careful of making hard-line declamations. Realize that there may be good reasons for things to be the way they are that you can’t discern, and don’t place blame unless you have proof. Consider it a low-foot diet.

Observation 2: Know your limits.
Mr. X obviously suspected that his letter may not be well-received, as he asked that Dustin not publish his name. I guess he thought that would prevent anyone from discovering his identity. Just as obviously, he was wrong. If you feel like you are doing something you could get in trouble for, don’t do it, unless you are willing to face the consequences. For the most part, I don’t post about the company I work for or the specifics of the work that I do there. If I wanted to respond to a post like Dustin’s, I would approach my manager about it first. The company is bigger than I am, and I wouldn’t take matters involving the company into my own hands.

Observation 3: Respect your employees.
Even if Mr. X did overstep his bounds a little, AA’s reaction was uncalled for. He was obviously defending the company in a friendly and intelligent manner. If they didn’t want him doing this, they should have reprimanded him. I doubt Mr. X would have done it again. Firing him within an hour after his letter was posted reeks of a knee-jerk reaction that wasn’t given proper consideration. Personally, I think they should have thanked him for trying to defuse a situation that would negatively impact the company’s image, asked him to please consult with them prior to making public responses in the future, and then asked that he head up a new effort to find a way to improve the website design and approval process.

Tales from the Field: Collaboration

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 23:59:00 -0500

In the past, collaboration was limited to collocated activities and voice communication via telephone or radio. The introduction of mobile computers has opened up numerous possibilities for remote collaboration.

When multiple mobile devices are connected via a wireless network supported by a server, participating technicians can share information and maintain awareness of overall status. I’ve designed software that helps Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) units track step-by-step procedure progress, as well as equipment status, and allows warfighters utilizing GPS to pinpoint each team member on a map of the area. Furthermore, team members are able to record locations of explosive devices and other hazards, information that is immediately shared with the rest of the team. The system included a “media board” where recorded audio and digital photographs could also be shared with all participants within seconds.

In the Details: Canister Dump

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 08:07:24 -0500

I’ve had a Fantom vacuum for over 10 years. It was a well-designed product, and we definitely got our money’s worth out of it. A circuit board went bad and the beater stopped turning. Fantom went out of business several years ago, so I decided repairing it wouldn’t be a good option. My in-laws decided they would give us a new vacuum as an early Christmas gift, so my wife and her mother went shopping on Monday. They came home with a Dyson.

When I got home from work, Susie excitedly showed me how to empty the canister. The Fantom had a canister, which was a huge improvement over dealing with bags, but the Dyson takes it a step further. Where you had to rotate the Fantom’s canister and pull the lid off, the Dyson has a lever that opens the bottom of the canister. You just hold it over the trash can, pull the lever, shake it a little, and then close it again.

Once again, thoughtful design resulted in small details leading to the sale of a more expensive product. There are other features that set this model apart for her, but I’ll leave those for future posts.

Designer’s Toolbelt: Parallels

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 23:59:00 -0500

Most of the projects that I work on are for the military or industry. As such, all of the software that I design runs on Windows. Even the web-based applications are built for IE without cross-browser support being a priority. In the past, I’ve had to remote into old, slow Windows machines or VMs to run IE or native applications. Now that I have a Mac with an Intel processor, I’m able to run Windows on it. I installed it yesterday using Parallels.

Parallels made the installation a piece of cake. All I had to do was insert the install CD, enter a license number, and away it went. I turned my attention to other work and in a matter of minutes, I heard the Windows startup sound.

Parallels has a few different view modes. You can run Windows in a window, where the window contains the Windows desktop, and all applications are opened in windows within the Windows window (catch that?). You can run it full screen so that you don’t see your Mac’s desktop at all. The best way to use it is in “Coherence” mode. This hides the Windows desktop altogether and presents each window as a window within your Mac OS X environment. Pressing the minimize button results in the window moving to the dock, genie effect and all. Windows can be moved between spaces, and they are sorted by Exposé. Clicking the Parallels icon in the dock results in the display of the Start Menu. Notifications are displayed in the standard Windows speech bubble in the bottom-right corner of the screen. The clipboard is shared between operating systems, and you can drag and drop between Windows and Mac applications. Network connections were made automatically without needing any of my input.

I showed it to one of the developers I work with, and he was surprised at how fast it runs. I’m impressed by the seamlessness with which they have integrated the Windows UI with the Mac OS. If you have to run Windows for testing, this is the way to do it.

I must admit, though, I do feel a little dirty having done it.

Interaction 10 Program

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 00:27:32 -0500

The program for Interaction 10 has been posted, and it looks like it will be another outstanding conference. The keynote speakers will be Paola Antonelli, Dan Hill, Jon Kolko, Ezio Manzini, Nathan Shedroff, and a true legend in the field, Bill Moggridge. Additional invited speakers are Timo Arnall, Cindy Chastain, Liz Danzico, Shelley Evenson, Dave Gray, Tom Igoe, Peter Morville, and Denise Wilton. Looking at this list and the 28 speakers selected from 250 session submissions, it appears that Service Design and sustainability with both be significant themes running through the conference.

Registration is now open, and early bird pricing is in effect through November. The past two conferences have sold out, and I see no reason for this one to not follow suit. I’m hoping to attend again, but that’s likely dependent on at least partial support from my company. Here’s hoping.

Nook

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 20:45:00 -0400

The ebook reader product space just got interesting with last week’s release of the Nook form Barnes & Noble. It is very close to the Kindle in size with the same E Ink display. A majority of the features found on the Kindle are mirrored on the Nook, including wireless connectivity for book purchases and subscription downloads. Where they differ significantly is in their user interfaces.

While they both place buttons for page turning on both sides of the screen, this is as far as the similarity goes. The bottom third of the Kindle’s face is given over to a physical keyboard—row upon row of tiny buttons. The Nook, on the other hand, sports a 3.5 inch color touchscreen. This screen is used for navigation, providing access to the various functions of the device, and browsing of your library in a coverflow-esque fashion (although not as fluid). It also provides the means by which you can highlight content, bookmark pages, and make annotations. This is what I was most curious about. How do they provide a touch UI in that small space that affords these complex interactions without direct manipulation, and presumably text entry. Unfortunately, they don’t demonstrate any of this in the screenshots or videos on the site. It’s almost as if they purposefully didn’t show it, perhaps to hide a kludgey interaction.

From what I’ve seen, the Nook seems more elegant than the Kindle, but I’ve never had the opportunity to try either one. And this is one instance in which having brick and mortar may provide an advantage. According to the website, you can try the Nook in the physical stores. I may have to pop in the next time I see a Barnes & Noble in my vicinity.

Toner Moaner Part 2

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 01:34:00 -0400

So, I’ve been using my printer for a couple months since it started telling me to replace all three color toner cartridges. I wrote about that back in September. Last night, I was trying to print out two pages of black text, and the printer refused to print, displaying an error message stating that all three cartridges were “end of life”. A quick search turned up a number of discussion forums with the instructions on how to circumvent this premature money grab on the part of Brother.

There are little windows on the sides of the cartridges through which you can see the toner. Apparently, the printer has some kind of optical mechanism for testing the amount of toner left. Of course, once the toner gets below a certain level, it no longer detects it, even though there is still some in there. According to the instructions, placing electrical tape over these windows causes the printer to think there is still toner in the cartridge. That doesn’t make much sense to me, as the chances of all three cartridges reporting empty at exactly the same time are highly unlikely.

I didn’t test that procedure, as there were also instructions on how to access a special menu via the console that lets you reset the life of each toner cartridge. This worked just fine, and I was finally able to print my pages. We’ll see how much farther I get before printed pages actually start showing signs of low toner.

Google’s App Gains Cachet

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 08:00:00 -0400

I’ve had Google’s app on my iPhone since it was released, but I have rarely used it. I thought of it more as a gimmick than a useful feature. In case you aren’t familiar with it, I’ll provide a brief explanation. After launching the app, you can raise the phone to your ear and speak a word or phrase that you wish to search for. The application listens to your speech, transcribes it, performs the search, and returns the results. I suppose it could be handy if you are on the move and need to look something up, but don’t want to stop to type. I think I have used it in such a fashion once or twice.

I was recently writing something in which I wanted to use the word “cachet,” but I couldn’t remember how it was spelled. All I could think of was “cache,” but as that is a different word with its own meaning, it kept me from using the auto-complete feature in my dictionary widget to find “cachet.” I knew how to pronounce the word, and Google’s app came to mind. I turned on my phone, spoke the word, and sure enough, Google promptly returned a list of results containing the word “cachet.”

Update: Something happened to the second half of this post when I saved it. I just discovered that it was incomplete and have re-written it. I’m sorry for the incomplete post.

In the Details: Mail Bounce

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 01:00:00 -0400

I’ve had an annoyance with the bouncing mail icon in the dock for quite some time. I like the notification mechanism, but I don’t like the fact that it bounces even when the Mail application has focus. In the past, I would ignore it while reading my mail. Then, I would minimize Mail, or switch to a different space, and remember, too late, that the icon was still bouncing. Clicking on the icon would stop the bouncing but bring Mail back up at the same time.

Snow Leopard hasn’t entirely fixed this, but it has mitigated the annoyance. I noticed that when an icon is bouncing in the dock, simply moving the cursor over it will stop the bouncing. It takes that as a sign that you have seen and acknowledged the notification.